The Turn of the Screw Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

This person proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing – this prospective patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix this type; it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her the courage she afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagant – saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming ways with women. (Prologue.13)

The overwhelming manliness of the Governess's employer is his most outstanding feature – he's really a very generic, undetailed, impersonal rich man as far as we can tell. However, this is enough to win over the Governess from the moment she meets him.